Following the die-early-and-die-often mechanics of titles like Super Hexagon and Pivvot, Duet offers another fantastic offering with minimalist graphics, a rocking soundtrack, and super-responsive controls that make for an experience that’s both frustrating and rewarding.

Featuring interesting level design, a cool pixel art aesthetic, and a quirky sense of humor, LEVEL 22’s restricted vision and reliance on trial-and-error often left us wandering the halls in frustration.

With the addition of a playable female protagonist, a greatly expanded game world, collectible ingredients for enhancement potions, and a richer storyline, Infinity Blade III retains all of the fantastic elements of the first two offerings while managing to improve in fun new ways. We’ll be quite disappointed if this truly is Infinity Blade’s swan song, as each iteration has been decidedly better than its predecessor.

Eschewing the multitude of weaponry available in the original for a crash course in defensive driving techniques, Zombie Highway: Driver’s Ed makes up for it with missions, vehicle upgrades, and experience leveling that compels the player to keep on truckin’.

Retaining the same style and spot-on controls as the original, Mikey Hooks adds grappling hooks, more obstacles, and a damage mechanic that adds a great deal of challenge and makes the sequel a standout hit.

Using simple building mechanics, sparse hands-off combat, and just a light smattering of overall goals to achieve, Rymdkapsel’s gameplay reinforces its presentation to offer a clever and challenging experience.

Featuring aircraft from the post-WWII/Cold War era, a short campaign, plenty of multiplayer options, and a few neat surprises, Sky Gamblers: Cold War provides yet another combat sim that gets the job done without standing out.

Replay value is very good, as there are plenty of unlockables and mixing up your loadouts can have an impact on how the battles play out. Additionally, enemy placement varies from one effort to the next, so that helps to keep things fresh.

Replay value is pretty good, as you can play very stealthy in one playthrough while blasting baddies at will in another. Your dialogue choices can also differ from one attempt to another, warranting additional playthroughs to see how these decisions play out. The gameplay itself is fun, despite (or maybe even in response to) the somewhat awkward enemy AI that often leaves them exposed like cutouts in a shooting gallery.

Replay value is good, as you’ll require multiple tries on some levels to earn all 5 water droplets that represent the most efficient use of water. GameCenter provides a handful of leaderboards, though no achievements.

Puzzle design is outstanding, with many later instances requiring extremely tight timing to escape certain doom. A dozen GameCenter achievements are available for a bit of replay value, and there is even an achievement for completing the game in one sitting with 5 or fewer deaths, which can be a pretty daunting challenge. This was our first experience with LIMBO and we were pretty blown away.

After a rocky start that saw the original release pulled for several months, Black Dawn is back with a new moniker, better visuals, and the same great gameplay that attracted gamers in the first place.